Blood Hunt

by Lucienne Diver

  At the name Roland, his brows rose even higher, actually disappearing into his hairline. “One minute.”

  He picked up his desk phone to make the call, but had to leave a message. As soon as he hung up, he picked the phone up again, probably to call Armani’s partner. Armani… best to start thinking of Nick that way again, to distance myself. The officer covered the mouthpiece of his phone when he spoke into it this time, but my precog didn’t set off any warning bells, and so I just stared all the while.

  When he hung up, he waved us to one of the few chairs in the entryway. “Someone will be out in a minute.”

  It took five minutes before Nick appeared, and when he did I caught my breath. Not because my heart still skipped a beat when I saw him…really it was more of a delay than an actual skip…but because of how tired he looked. Exhausted, really, like he hadn’t slept in a week.

  “Come on back,” he said, barely meeting my gaze.

  We followed him in. He bypassed his desk entirely and headed straight for one of the interview rooms.

  “Can I talk with you first?” I asked before he could shut us in.

  He turned to me, and it hurt more than it should have to see the cop look on his face, as though I was just another perp he was prepared not to believe whatever I had to say. The look was pretty effective. If I really was in the hot seat, I might be revising my strategy right about now, considering whether it was even worth the effort to lie to him.

  “Please,” I added.

  He sighed heavily. “Do you mind waiting for just a second?” he asked Jessica.

  She looked at me, and I nodded. “Just for a second,” I said. “I want to make sure the detective understands the situation.”

  She blinked, new tears catching in her lashes. Not that I didn’t understand, given the situation, but if she kept up like this, she was going to dehydrate in no time. “Maybe someone can get her a bottle of water,” I suggested.

  Nick…Armani…looked into my eyes, searching for hidden meaning. Finding none. He glanced toward his desk and gestured to someone nearby. I turned to look and found an attractive Latina woman headed toward us, her hair pulled back into a tight queue at the back of her head.

  “Detective Reyes, can you get Ms. Roland something to drink? I’ll be back in just a second.”

  Her gaze raked me dispassionately, and when she turned to Jessica, her lips quirked up in a smile that transformed her face. The warmth of it made her more than just attractive. It made her compelling. I felt a pull at my heart at the thought of her working so closely with Nick and knew that it was totally unfair.

  Detective Reyes motioned Jessica away from the door, off to another room, and Nick held the interrogation room open for me to precede him. I did and he shut the door and leaned against it.

  “For you,” I said, holding out the coffee.

  He stared it down, his eyes crinkling at the corners momentarily. “That your idea of a bribe?” he asked. Still, he took the cup. “It’s not even hot.”

  “Fine, I’ll take it if you don’t want it.”

  “I didn’t say that.” He took a long sip and then fixed me with a look. “Okay, so talk.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out again. “It’s going to be one of those cases,” I began.

  “One of your kind of cases, you mean?” He suddenly looked even wearier than he had before, despite the coffee.

  “I think so. At least, Jessica thinks so. I know it sounds crazy—well, probably not after all you’ve seen—but she says the Roland boys came back from their trip to Egypt…different. Not her brothers. At least, not entirely.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “To anyone else that might sound crazy.” He took another supersized sip.

  “I know. I mean, there are cases of brain injuries or whatever changing a person. If it had just been one…but both strains credibility.”

  He laughed, but without much mirth. “And you’re about to propose something much more credible? What—possession? Body snatchers? Cyborgs? Changelings? Stop me when I get close.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I don’t know. I just started on the case. Literally. Jessica made the appointment yesterday. We met this morning and then we came straight from my office to yours.”

  “Wait, she called you yesterday? The murders only happened last night.”

  “Yeah, she called before the murders. Her brothers scared her. She wanted me to find out what happened to them over in Egypt. I think she was hoping for a solution. She didn’t expect…this.”

  “Did she tell you her whereabouts last night?”

  “She did. She stayed with a girlfriend.”

  “But left her parents alone with her brothers?”

  “Again, she wasn’t expecting murder. Would you?”

  “I don’t know. I won’t know until I talk to her.”

  “You’ll do that soon enough. First, I need to know whatever you can tell me,” I said, glancing into those deep blue eyes.

  He gazed back and I couldn’t read him. I hated that.

  “Like what?”

  “First, whether you’ve found the Roland boys. I’m assuming not or it would be all over the news that you had them in custody.”

  “You assume right. There’s been no sign of them. And they’re not exactly answering their phones.”

  “And I’ll need to see the crime scene.”

  He stared like I’d grown a second head. Given my sudden sprouting of wings not so long ago, it wasn’t entirely out of the question. I had to resist checking just to be sure. “You don’t ask for much, do you?” he asked. “The crime scene techs probably aren’t even done processing yet.”

  “Call me when they’re done? Same deal as always—you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

  I didn’t quite realize what I’d said until the words were out of my mouth, and then I wished to gods I could recall them.

  His eyes darkened, and he didn’t say anything for a full minute. “Professionally?” he asked finally.

  I looked away. It hurt too much otherwise. “Professionally,” I confirmed.

  “Damn shame,” he said, and left it at that.

  “No promises on the crime scene,” he said after a moment, “but I’ll see what I can do. I’ll call you later.”

  It was his turn to look away at that. Such a simple thing, and so loaded.

  “Um, good. Great. Thank you. I’ll let you talk to Jessica right now. I’m going to explore some of her brothers’ haunts, see if I can find them.”

  “Be careful,” he said, meeting my gaze again.

  “You too,” I said.

  “Always,” he answered, though we both knew that wasn’t true.

  “It’s good to see you back. How did you explain the miraculous healing?”

  Nick pulled at a gold chain I’d barely noted around his neck and brought a pendant out from where it rested next to his heart.

  “A St. Christopher medal?” I asked.

  “Jude. Saint of impossible cases. You mentioned miraculous healing. That’s exactly what I went with.”

  “Your mother must be so proud,” I said with complete sincerity.

  If there was one thing Nick had told me about his mother, it was that she was a diehard Roman Catholic…the kind who went to church not just every week, but every day. Oh, and that she was, literally, a little old lady from Pasadena, just like the song.

  His lips quirked. “In hindsight, the miracle might have been a mistake. Now she expects me to drive up and take her to church every Sunday to show proper thanks. And she likes to show me off to her friends.”

  I tried not to smile at the thought of Nick among the church ladies. He’d be quite a catch. No doubt eligible daughters were being flung at him left and right.

  “Matchmaking?” I asked.

  “Don’t eve
n get me started.”

  It was my cue to go. I knew it. Even so, I hesitated just a second.

  “Call me about that crime scene,” I said as a parting line.

  He just nodded, letting me have the last word.

  * * * * *

  In the car I looked at the list Jessica had given me and tried to prioritize. Mentally, I came up with a most-likely/closest-by-scale that helped me pinpoint my first few stops…after the crime scene. I knew I couldn’t get in right away. That would have to wait until Nick…Armani…called. If he called. But I had a burning need to see what I could myself. To begin at the beginning, move on until the end, then stop, as Lewis Carroll would have said.

  My reasoning was twofold. One, there’d be looky-loos—reporters, neighbors, passersby, any local scanner-jockey who’d rather chase police cars than ambulances. If I was lucky, one or both of the Roland boys might even return to the scene of the crime. Or…well, I wouldn’t know until I got there. My hope was that I’d find someone who knew something they hadn’t told the police, or that the police would never tell me, maybe something crucial they were withholding. I needed to gather all the intel I could. Knowledge was power.

  Which brought me to reason number two.

  Just seeing how and where the Roland boys had lived would help me build a profile that could lead me to them. Maybe even allow me to bring them in without bloodshed. I could dream. Maybe my own Saint Jude medal was in order.

  I GPSed the address Jessica had given me, but the roads up in the Hollywood Hills were narrow and the closer I got, the harder it was to get through. Cars were parked illegally all along the way—up to a mile from the house. I drove carefully past them all…for about a half mile until I met a car coming the other way on a road that had been artificially choked down to a single lane. One of us was going to have to back off, and it was clear it would not be the lady in the other car.

  Her heavily kohl-lined eyes burned like lasers, boring their way through both our windshields until I could feel the heat of them. Her face was broad and symmetrical, which seemed a weird thing to notice, but it was almost too perfect. Most people had something—a scar, a brow slightly higher than another, one lid droopier or…something. But even the intricate braids of her hair perfectly matched from one side to the other.

  I memorized her for later, just in case. Maybe it was my precog. Maybe it was the sense of purpose rolling off her in waves, but I had an idea she’d be important later on.

  Her eyes seemed to flare as we continued to face off, as though she could move me off the road through sheer force of will. The odd thing was, it worked. One of us had to give, and in this case it was clear it would have to be me.

  Scowling, I backed up until I found a driveway I could pull into to get out of her way, and then she drove past without raising a hand in thanks or even looking my way in any sort of acknowledgment. I flung a few choice words after her and stopped when I realized I’d come back around to the beginning.

  Vocab exhausted, I shrugged off the encounter and found a place to park down the hill, probably illegally. I had to hope the cops were too busy to ticket me. I set my parking brake and trudged up the hill to the murder scene. And trudged. As much as I’d bemoaned their existence when I’d had them, I now mourned the temporary loss of my wings. My back kept twitching, as though my wings wanted out. I could have flown to the scene in no time…if I wanted to expose myself to the reporters and half the police force. But I didn’t. I climbed up the old-fashioned way.

  The news vans alerted me when I got close…those and the kick to the gut delivered by my precog. There was something important here. As if I needed my precog to tell me that.

  The danger might have moved on, but it hadn’t passed.

  The scene was controlled chaos. The Roland mansion stood behind seven-foot tall wrought-iron fencing with even higher gates done up in scrollwork that culminated with a medallion containing the house number in a fancy font. The medallion was, in fact, about all I could see of the front gates beyond the spectators, most with cameras or phones held over their heads to capture what they couldn’t see themselves. The mansion wasn’t far beyond the gates, space being such a premium on the hills. Unlike most of its neighbors, it was a boxy brick colonial, complete with two-story white pillars and wrap-around front porch, rather than something more hacienda in style.

  In the foreground, two reporters stood several feet from each other, each on a raised platform to bring them to the level where a cameraman could get the mansion in the shot, a trick of perspective, as they delivered their sound bytes. They were from competing networks. I wondered how their sound guys would do with cutting out their rival’s background chatter.

  I was nearly past when one, a woman in a red power suit with flowing chestnut hair, called out, “Wait!” and jumped down from her box.

  I was startled enough to turn and ended up with a camera in my face. I put a hand up to block it, and then realized that walking away would work even better.

  A hand landed on my arm, and I was tempted to remove it with prejudice…if only the camera weren’t rolling. Anyway, I supposed that if I got really desperate I could just give her and her cameraman the gorgon glare to get away. Enough to freeze them in their tracks, of course, not turn them to stone. That could be accomplished too, but it required blood I was not ready to spill.

  I halted but didn’t turn, so the woman circled around in front of me, her four-inch heels putting her at about eye-level with me in my boots. “You’re that girl,” she said, eyes wide.

  “Girl might be a bit of a stretch,” I answered ungraciously.

  I recognized her, I thought. A stringer from Channel 9. Not a tabloid journalist or a sensationalist—that I knew of—but an on-site reporter, someone they sent to various scenes so the anchors would have someone to talk to from the comfort of their desks.

  She smiled, and it did good things for her. “Sorry, let me introduce myself. I’m Susie Tallios from News9. I…I recognize you from the trouble in New York last month.”

  I snorted. “Trouble” was possibly the understatement of the year. Zombies, plague demons, godly cabals, none of which had been limited to the Big Apple… Trouble didn’t cover the half of it. But then, neither had the news.

  “Rumors of my involvement have been greatly exaggerated,” I said, meeting her gaze in a way I hoped projected sincerity.

  “And now you’re here,” she said.

  I bit back a comment on her mastery of the obvious.

  “Can we talk?” she asked.

  I considered that. I was looking for information. It was just possible she had some. News was her business, after all.

  “Maybe,” I responded. “If you’ll turn off your camera.”

  She looked to the cameraman as if she’d forgotten all about him, and made a hand gesture that looked something like cutting her own throat.

  I glanced back to see him making a few gestures of his own. When he saw me looking, he sighed heavily and lowered the camera. “Fine. I’ll get some crowd reaction. But don’t be long. They might want you to interview some of the neighbors or…” he shrugged, “…you know how it goes.”

  “I do,” she said. “I’ll be right with you.”

  I waited for the cameraman to go off before facing Suzie again. My precog hadn’t kicked up at her presence, which meant she didn’t present a danger. It didn’t mean she was my friend.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “So, what do you want?” I asked.

  She looked after the cameraman to make sure he was really gone. “Listen, I’m ambitious, okay?” I did not roll my eyes. I’d seen it coming. “I’ve done some checking. Whatever else you might be, you’re a P.I. You work here in L.A. You’ve been connected with Apollo Demas and with the murder earlier this year of that talent agent Circe Holland, the details of which are still hazy at best. You were photographed fighting off
a crazed mob in Central Park.” It was fascinating the spin the press and everyone else had put on the sudden profusion of plagues and other insanity. But then, magic and myth were out of the realm of most peoples’ experience. Conspiracies, on the other hand, were almost an everyday affair. Plus, they had the advantage of selling papers. I’d seen speculation blaming everything from killer viruses escaping the CDC to radical groups like ISIS and Al Quaida.

  She lowered her voice, looked surreptitiously left and right. “And now,” she near-whispered, “here you are, right on the scene where two people were murdered, their brains literally scrambled…”

  “Wait, what?”

  She had my full attention now. She grinned as if she knew it. “I’ll tell you what I know if you’ll give me something I can use.”

  I eyed her. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to make a reporter friend. It didn’t seem like I could avoid the news anyway. Might as well use it to my advantage. Wasn’t that what Apollo wanted? Would making my own friend keep me off the red carpet?

  “I’ll have to hear what you have first,” I said.

  She eyed me back. “You good for it?” she asked.

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  She turned a little green at that for some reason. It looked like she might even have lifted a hand to cross herself but caught herself first. Interesting.

  “Okay then.” She looked around again to be sure no one close enough to overhear. A few of the spectators had turned from watching the nothing they could see through the crowd of people between them and the fence to watching us, but unless anyone had super hearing…a deeply underestimated superpower in my book… “Look, the rest of that saying, ‘Cross my heart and hope to die’ is ‘stick a needle in my eye’, right?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, that’s pretty close to what happened.”

  “More,” I said.

  Her eyes scrunched shut for a minute. Her lips twisted. These weren’t just words for her. Whatever had happened had left an impression. “Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but…well, look, I caught an officer losing his lunch over the scene inside. He talked before he could think better of it. Really, I think he was just trying to vent the horror. He swore me to secrecy. I can’t use this…yet…but… Those poor people inside had skewers stuffed up into their brains and…when I say scrambled, I meant liquefied. And the police didn’t find the fluids all over the floor, which means…”